The present invention relates, in general, to cooking equipment, and more particularly, to portable field stoves.
Heating and cooking food and heating fluids in the field has always presented problems to campers and hikers. These people have only limited space and weight which can be devoted to their cooking needs, yet such needs are essential and may be critical if the person is subject to severe environmental conditions and has a possibility of being cut off from supplies or from support areas. These problems must be solved, yet cannot be solved using equipment which is unduly expensive or which creates problems or inefficiencies in the field.
Heating and cooking devices for use by campers, or the like, should be easily transported in a form which does not require a great deal of space and which is not unduly heavy. Yet, at the same time, these devices should be sturdy even in severe weather and terrain conditions, as a stove or grill collapsing can be dangerous. These requirements are made even more difficult by a further requirement that such devices be easily and quickly assembled and disassembled in the field so that camp set-up and break-up can be efficiently and conveniently carried out by all, even those whose dexterity is impaired for some reason, such as because they are wearing heavy gloves, or the like.
Cost is a further consideration for these devices. Thus, while satisfying all of the above requirements, a successful device of this type should not be difficult or costly to manufacture or be unduly expensive to the consumer. Furthermore, if there are a multiplicity of parts, or if the parts of a device are easily lost but not easily replaced, or if an entirely new unit is required if one element of a stove is damaged or lost, the stoves are expensive.
Along this line, to be most cost-effective, the stove should be amenable to as many different uses as possible. For example, many of the presently-available stoves can be used for heating foods, while many other types of presently-available stoves can be used to fry foods, while other such stoves can be used to heat liquids. However, none of the presently-available stoves are amenable to efficiently accomplishing all of these tasks without requiring additional equipment and while still satisfying all of the above-stated criteria.
Efficient use of heat source fuel is another important consideration to field stoves. If fuel is burned too quickly, fuel costs are high, yet if fuel is burned too quickly, fuel costs are high, yet if fuel is burned too slowly, cooking time is too long. If fuel cannot be readily replenished, it becomes very important to properly ventilate the stove for the most efficient fuel consumption.
Another important consideration for such equipment is adaptability for use under a variety of environmental conditions. Thus, a person may camp in mountainous terrain, in windy areas, or even on snow or ice-covered terrain such as Arctic environments. It is desirable to have one single device which can function reliably and efficiently under all of these conditions.
Because military personnel are often cut off from sources of supply, all of the above-mentioned requirements are present and elevated from mere requirements to critical needs for military personnel. Also, since the military may require millions of field stoves, the cost of each item is an extremely important consideration. Furthermore, military personnel must be highly mobile and able to make camp and break camp quickly. In addition to the above requirements, the change from canned rations to dried rations in both civilian and military areas has created new problems. In the past, a canteen cup, such as used by the military, could be used as a container in which to heat fluids or rations. While convenient and effective, the canteen cup still must be placed over a heat source to effect this heating.
With canned rations, certain foods, such as crackers, for example, were stored in cans. Once opened, these cans provided a convenient field stove in which a portable heat source could be placed to heat a canteen cup or other food storage can resting on top of the can. Furthermore, food in such rations was often stored in fluid and thus could be heated or cooked in a convenient manner over such a temporary field "stove".
This system of forming field stoves worked well until the rations system in both the civilian and the military areas was converted from cans to ready-to-eat freeze dried and pouched foods. This conversion realizes many advantages over the canned feed ration system, but also creates several problems for the person in the field. First, the use of dried and pouched foods creates a requirement for additional water to replace the fluid heretofore present in the canned foods, such fluid being both a cooking medium and a consumable fluid. Second, the removal of the can itself eliminated the herein above-discussed heat source container used in conjunction with a canteen cup to form a portable field stove.